“Yes.” I take a step toward the tunnel mouth, and my legs choose that moment to wobble.
Okay, maybe more than wobble.
Sarven catches me before I drop three inches.
One arm sweeps under my knees, the other around my back, and suddenly I am airborne. He cradles me against his chest like I weigh nothing more than a basket of gourds.
“I can walk,” I protest automatically, though I wrap my arms around his neck immediately.
“You wobble,” he corrects. “I carry.”
“I’m heavy.”
He snorts. It’s a derisive, amused sound.
“You are a pebble,” he sends. “I could carry you up a cliff. I could carry you to the moons.”
He starts walking, his stride eating up the distance that took us hours to traverse before.
“The moons seems excessive,” I mumble against his shoulder.
“I am strong,” he projects, the thought radiating simple, unadulterated joy. “I am bonded. I am endless.”
I rest my head against him, listening to the thud of his heart. He feels endless. He feels like he could carry the weight of the mountain if he had to.
As we step out of the alcove and into the main tunnel, the world shifts.
I can feel the air currents moving against Sarven’s skin. I can sense the density of the rock walls. I can hear echoes through the stone that I never heard until now.
It’s overwhelming. It’s dizzying.
It’s like walking with the lights on for the first time.
“You see?” he asks, feeling my wonder.
“I see,” I whisper.
He squeezes me tighter.
“Then we run.”
And we do. We move through the dark, racing to save a world that finally feels like it might be worth saving.
Chapter 20
APPARENTLY, WE SMELL LIKE SEX AND WET ROCK (DIRECT QUOTE FROM ALEX)
MIKAELA
The climb out of the ravine feels short.
Maybe because I’m no longer climbing and Sarven is carrying me.
The return journey is a blur of motion that defies physics.
The route that would have taken us hours of careful climbing takes Sarven minutes. He moves with a new, terrifying grace, leaping over the gaps where we would have stumbled, his feet finding purchase on rock I wouldn’t dare step on. The terrain that slowed us down is nothing to him now; he navigates it like he owns it.
By the time we reach the familiar slope leading to the main cavern, my lungs are burning just from the altitude change, but I’m alive.
